Peeking inside 1942's "Handbook of Civilian Protection"

Piggybacking on the topic of today's earlier post, here's a brief look at the 1942 Handbook of Civilian Protection, published on the heels of the United States' entrance into World War II.

It was prepared by the Civilian Defense Council of the College of the City of New York (which received all royalties), published by Whittlesey House (a division of McGraw-Hill) and printed at The Maple Press Company of York, Pennsylvania, because of course there's almost always a York connection. 

Topics addressed include:

• Total War and the Civilian
• Organization of the Citizens' Defense Corps in Each Community
• How the Air Raid Alarm System Works
• The Work of the Air Raid Wardens
• What to Do in Your Home
• The Problem of Glass
• Blackouts and Lighting Restrictions
• The Work of Fire Watchers
• Incendiary Bombs and High Explosives
• Use of Garden Hose
• How to Protect Yourself against High Explosives
• How to Protect Records, Rare Books, and Art Treasures¹
• Illegality of Poison Gas
• Reducing Your Consumption of Rubber
• Nutrition in the Wartime Emergency

This was early in World War II. Much of the information seems to be informed by a combination of knowledge from World War I that was still relevant, plus insights gained from the Battle of Britain and The Blitz. All of this is, of course, pre-Cold War and atomic worries. Standard first aid, how to be safe in your home during an air attack and wartime conservation are large portions of the guide.

Here are some images from the book:

Footnote

1. Three pages are devoted to this! I love my books. But if my house is under attack, my only concern is the human beings and animals. (And living in the desert, where basements are extremely rare, means we're kind of screwed.) The book notes: "During the panic of May, 1940, caused by the news of the break in the French front, employees of the Quai d'Orsay lighted huge bonfires along the Seine with great bundles of secret documents and other archives hurled out of windows of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Valuable libraries, notably those of Louvain, London, and Bristol universities and the university library at Manila have already been destroyed in this war. ... The imprudence of concentrating records in one central location, however protected from bombardment, has been amply demonstrated in the present war. Hence, evacuation, particularly in the case of rare books and art treasures, to places of emergency storage is urged."

"That belongs in a museum"

I've been trying, on and off, for more than a decade to find a new home for this behemoth Emergency Resource Management Plan. Joan and I acquired it in a bulk lot of used books circa 2010.

As I wrote 13 years ago on this blog:

In 1967, two years after the end of his second (nonconsecutive) term as Delaware's governor and less than five years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Elbert Nostrand Carvel received this 2½-inch-thick, six-pound blue binder from the state's Office of Emergency Planning. It begins with a letter indicating: "The State of Delaware has developed a plan for the assessment and management of its resources in the event of an emergency caused by a nuclear attack on this country." 

There are tabbed sections on Construction and Housing; Economic Stabilization; Food; Health and Water; Industrial Production; Manpower; Petroleum, Gas and Solid Fuels; Transportation; and Electric Power.

I'm dubious about how helpful all of this planning would have been following a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. And now it's just a relic. A six-pound doorstop that encapsulates a moment of state-level planning during the Cold War. A monument to the folly of believing there would be survivability in armageddon.

But an important monument. It's history, and I think it's crucial that it be preserved. So I hauled it from house to house during two different moves. We had it in our Dover Antique Mall vending space at one point, but there were no takers. And I've listed it online several times without getting any bites. Finally, I gave it another go on eBay — and there was a taker.

It's going to a museum!

This is the greatest possible outcome. The historic blue behemoth now belongs to the National Museum of Civil Defense, located at Randolph Air Force Base in central Texas. 

The nonprofit museum was formed in 2020 and, in the short time since then, according to its website, it "has grown into an organization with the largest known Collection of related artifacts and archival materials. The NMCD connects with the public through online and social media presence, related conferences, oral history interviews, and artifact preservation." The museum does not have a permanent brick-and-mortar location yet, but is planning toward that end. In the meantime, interested researchers can make arrangements to view the collection.

This is how those who operate the museum describe U.S. civil defense history:

"Civil Defense is defined as 'plans or activities organized by civilians and civilian authorities for the protection of civilian population and property in times of such disasters or emergencies as war or floods.' The United States has had some form of a Civil Defense program since the formation of the Office of Civilian Defense in 1941. Since then, the focus, size, scope, and visibility of the program has ebbed and flowed with the changing geopolitical tides.  Tied to developments in strategic nuclear weapons, missiles, and even spy satellites ​— it endured name changes to 'Civil Preparedness' and later 'Emergency Management.' Throughout this time, thousands of men and women (both paid employees and volunteers) at the federal, state, and local government dedicated themselves to the goal of protecting the public against catastrophe.

​"Today, Civil Defense is often seen in the public eye as a curiosity — generally associated with the early Cold War. Too often, the prevailing historical perspective on Civil Defense is less than a superficial footnote. It is the utmost goal of our organization to preserve this history in a way that reflects the dignity and urgency of the program, and the people who created and dedicated their lives to it. The Museum believes that there are many stories remaining to be told."

And now the story of Delaware's state-level emergency planning in the late 1960s can be told with more detail, too. I'm thrilled to have helped in a tiny way to make this possible. 

1924 advertisement: "Heaney's Great Milk Can Escape"

From 101 years ago, here's a catalog entry for Heaney's Great Milk Can Escape from 1924's Heaney Magic Company Catalogue No. 25. Per Wikipedia, Gerald Heaney (1899-1974) was a stage musician and magic props supplier from Berlin, Wisconsin. He started a mail-order business for tricks, props and other magician supplies in the early 1920s. 

A profile of Heaney by Pat Fitzpatrick in the October 31, 1965, issue of The Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wisconsin, states: "In the early years Heaney built numerous escapes used by himself and his wife in the shows. Many times during the past four decades, Princess Aloiv [his wife, Viola McCarthy] has floated through the air, under the showman's hypnotic powers. An accomplished musician, she plays the organ during performances, and records music for playback in the course of the show. Heaney has had many assistants over the years. The principal requirement for girls working in mysteries is that they must be small enough to fit into the Chinese torture wheel and the vivisection illusion."

Heaney's Great Milk Can Escape states, in part: "Looks impossible and it seems as if the performer will meet his fate in the padlocked can. The large can is filled with water and the performer enters in a bathing sit, a screen is drawn and the assistants stand outside with hatchets and watches in their hands, knowing the over four or five minutes in the water filled can would mean a drowning death. The escape is made in a very short space of time and the can is found to be as secure as before the escape. Our Milk Cans are of the best material and labor. They cannot be duplicated. ... Can be performed by anyone."

The cost was $30.

That's more than $560 today! Being a magician was costly, and the secrets were expensive!

Cathy's Little Free Libraries in Globe, Arizona

Last week, we were in Globe, Arizona, and the surrounding area and found two delightful Little Free Libraries, both of which were dedicated to the life and memory of Cathy Sanchez-Cañez (also listed as Catherine "Cathy" Eileen Cañez). She died at age 52 on July 22, 2019, during a flash flood in Globe. 

Cathy was a special education teacher who spent most of her career working with students in the Globe/Miami area. There is now a Cathy Sanchez-Cañez Foundation and other regular community efforts in her memory. This past April saw the publication of Teacher from Heaven. Its description states: "Aubrey is a kind and thoughtful girl who loves her hometown of Globe, Arizona. From learning to read with her teacher to spending time with the people she loves, Aubrey knows that in her small town, little moments matter. Teacher from Heaven is a warm and loving story about family, friends, and loss. ... This story shows how one person’s kindness can live on, even after they are gone."

And there are the Little Free Libraries. According to an article in the March 31, 2021, edition of the Copper Country News, there are four of them, including one at Miami Veterans Memorial Park. (We visited the locations at Leonard Paul's Pizza and Globe City Hall.) What a wonderful way to keep her memory alive with the sharing of books!

The Copper Country News article states: "The mission of Cathy’s Little Free Library is to promote literacy and the love of reading, foster a sense of community and connection, and create a lasting memorial to Cathy Sanchez-Cañez. The campaign began as an idea last year and with the overwhelming amount of love and support from so many, it has now become four unique libraries that have circulated more than 400 books into the community. ... Each library was constructed by family and friends who donated all materials and time to build them with love. [Globe] Mayor Al Gameros hand painted each library specifically for the area they are placed. He said the Miami one was special to him; born and raised in Miami, Mayor Gameros is a Vandal and Cathy Sanchez-Cañez spent the last few years teaching at [Miami Unified School District]."

Here are some more photos I took.

We left many more books than we took at the two libraries last weekend, helping in a small way to keep them freshly stocked (and to keep Resimplify Me going strong). We did snag an old Encyclopedia Brown paperback for nostalgia's seek and, oddly, a DVD of Them! an old science-fiction film I'd been thinking about lately. I'm looking forward to returning to Globe and Miami to continue restocking Cathy's and other Little Free Libraries.

Recent related post: Little Free Library in the Catalina Foothills

Book cover: "The Roadside Wildlife Book" ... plus skunks

• Title: The Roadside Wildlife Book
• Author: Richard Mabey (1941-present). He also wrote The Unofficial Countryside, which I blogged about in 2021.
• Publisher: Sphere Books Limited, London
• Year: 1978 (first published 1974)
• Pages: 141
• Format: Trade paperback
• Price: 95p in the United Kingdom, £1.04½p in Ireland
• Back cover blurb: "From high-speed motorways to meandering country lanes, roads are an integral part of our modern countryside, and Britain's road verges total half a million acres of land. Now Richard Mabey, top-selling author of FOOD FOR FREE, has compiled a fascinating and informative guide to our roadside wildlife. This book not only give an introduction to the natural history you may encounter on the roads (which could range from migrating toads to gale-blown sea ducks), but also shows how wildlife is adapting to the influence of the dominant mammal, travelling Man."
• Acknowledgments: Mabey notes that Nan Fairbrother's writings, including the 1970 book New Lives, New Landscapes was a key influence. That book is about "planning a humane landscape for a technological society."
• First sentence: The first country road I remember was one my father wheeled me along in a push-chair most Sunday mornings during the last year of the war.
• Last sentences: But as I hope I have shown, leaving your car is not only better for the land. It also gives you a chance to meet the natural world face to face.
• Random excerpt from middle #1: Breckland has a unique collection of plants, some of which grow nowhere else in the British Isles and belong really to the Russian steppes.
• Random excerpt from middle #2: There was a remarkable Noah's Ark operation done on a family of Hertfordshire badgers at Bishop's Stortford on the route of the new M11. They were successfully transplated 50 miles away, in a disused sett.
• Random excerpt from middle #3 (this was written in 1974, remember): An ecologically acceptable vehicle would not just be a "safety" car but an "organic" one, fitting in as far as possible with the needs of all the creatures it has to share space with. Space is a key notion; the ecological car would occupy less than a third of the road space of the modern saloon — 9,000 square inches has been recommended as the maximum. It would be powered by electricity, or some other non-polluting energy source, and would be restricted in its power (and therefore energy consumption), its top speed, and the amount of noise it could make. Ideally it would be automated on trunk roads and only be put back into a human's unsteady hands when it was on a side road and unlikely to meet much other traffic. It is surely not beyond the wit and our car manufacturers — always paraded as the spearhead of British technology — to mass-produce a car of this sort.
• Rating on Goodreads: 3.67 stars (out of 5)
• Contemporary review: In the November 28, 1974, edition of The Guardian, Richard Boston wrote: "Mr Mabey is scrupulously fair in presenting the arguments in favour of the motor car. For people who live in towns the car is a liberator, and the country could for them almost be defined as what can be seen from a car. But there are limits to fairness, and the general tone of the book is polemical. The car is also a great destroyer, both through pollution and means of a more brutally fatal impact. Mabey reckons that two and half million birds are killed on British roads every year, and 1,000 badgers in Somerset alone. As destructive as the car is thoughtless hedge-cutting, especially by means of the flail-type cutter. Ruthless hedge control is not only brutal in the short run but is eventually going to bring about major changes in the look of our landscape."
• 
  Related thoughts: I don't go out on roads too much, and there's not much to stop and see (other than Little Free Libraries) in the middle of the 110-degree desert. But our backyard wildlife here in Florence is interesting. Earlier this year I did my best to assist a pair of hummingbird chicks that left their tiny nest just a little too early. And this morning I was greeted by a green hummingbird that hovered right near my head, reminding me to fill its hanging feeder. But the big thing lately is skunks. This is our second summer of skunks. We had a few babies last summer and I kind of pampered them, because the reality is that skunks in residential areas don't live very long lives. Then, in the late spring of this year, a lone pudgy skunk that I assumed was pregnant started returning regularly to feed. And, hey presto, now we have three or four tiny toddlers that come regularly, including one that isn't at all scared of me. The skunks make it a little trickier to feed the feral cats (Mamacita, Creamsicle, Splash, Meowmix and Gumball), who keep their distance and wait their turn. So I work a little extra in the evenings to make sure they all have enough water and food. Because, like I said, it's 110. In fact, we're entering a stretch of a week or more where it's going to be 112 to 115 daily. Poor critters.

Snapshot & memories: Well-dressed for first day of nursery school

That's quite the amazing outfit I'm wearing inside the house on Mulberry Street in Montoursville, Pennsylvania. The photo is captioned "First day of Nursery School, Sept. 3, 1974" — nearly 51 years ago. I am about 3 years and 9 months old in this snapshot.

Groovy fashion maven Wendyvee comments: "Moms of the mid-1970s — always dressing their boys as if they were cosplaying 'Junior Executive in Business Casual at a Team Building Retreat Weekend.' Winning the side hair part and mischievous smile game, though."

I'm also thinking what an amazing fireplace that is. That was an amazing house, overall; I wish I remembered more of it. Thank heavens for a few stray snapshots that still exist. I'm sure it would seem impossibly small if I went inside today. Even my hazy memories tell me the upstairs was very cramped, and I was tiny then. Here's another shot of the interior and another great Chris outfit.

(If I had access to the Mulberry Street house, and if that fireplace is still there and if I could find similar clothes at a vintage clothing store, I guess I could try to recreate this photo for the side-by-side effect. But it wouldn't be pretty.)

I have very few memories of my two years of nursery school, though I wrote about it a little in this 2018 post. I did eventually launch me on my successful public school journey, though!

Other snapshots and memories          

• Adorable little me on Mulberry Street
• Kitchen at Willow Street house in Montoursville
• Me and Pop-Pop in the kitchen
• Commodore 64 corner
• (Missing) snapshot & memories: Thanksgiving
• Me & Cyrano
• Me in a Star Trek shirt
• All kids do these days is play video games
• Posing with a Saturn V in 1982
• The Phillies are hot, and so was I
• Relocated fire engine in Montoursville
• Family outfits of 1972
• Our little bookstore

"Stress the help. Not detention — help."

One of my current reads is Our Children's Children, a 1974 novel by pastoral sci-fi author Clifford D. Simak. As the story opens, thousands of humans from the far future are streaming into present-day Earth using portals of some sort. This is causing an immediate crisis for world governments, because what are you supposed do with all of these newcomers in need of basic human resources and care?

I began reading more closely, considering parallels with our current moment.

Here are some passages from the opening chapters:

• "They count upon your sufferance," said the man. "They are refugees."
• "An invasion, you might call it. but not a warlike invasion. They are coming emptyhanded. They are quiet and peaceable."
• [U.S. president speaking to Secretary of Defense] "Use every resource at your command. You have inflatable shelters. How about transportation and food. ... You'll have to handle it on an emergency basis until we can settle on some plan. Don't worry too much about procedures. If you have to bend a few them, we'll take care of that."
• [U.S. president speaking to White House press secretary about informing the press] "Tell them we're trying to find out. The situation is under study. You can tell them the armed services are moving rapidly to help these people. Stress the help. Not detention — help. The guard may have to be called out to do the job."
• "Children of our children," said the President, "many times removed. If they're truly from the future, they are our descendants. We can't turn our backs on them."
• "Just ordinary people, sir. Far as I can see. No different from us, except that they got a sort of funny accent. They dress funny. ... But they are polite and cooperative. They don't give us no trouble."

So we'll see where the tale goes from here...

I did peek ahead to some of the comments and reviews on Goodreads, and this excerpt from Cheryl in July 2020 stuck out: "I love stories with 'no bad guys' ... I mean, yeah, there is a threat, but all the people from both eras are just doing the best they can. I'm glad Simak didn't live to see our divisiveness that enabled the election of Trump. I do note that southern Wisconsin, Simak's home, voted for him, but they were desperate for jobs iirc and believed the charm of the businessman. I wonder if we'll ever have the kind of world, or even country, that Simak saw as a possibility."

50 years ago today: Crazy curl perms & "Crazy Mama"

Just for the halibut, here are some headlines and advertisements from the Friday, July 25, 1975, edition of the Worthington (Minnesota) Daily Globe:

• Main story on A1: Yellow gas knocked out astronaut
• House rejects lifting ban on sale of arms to Turkey
• Voting rights act extension passes; Ford plans to sign
• Americans pay more than ever for beef
• CIA reveals how it monitored U.S. mail
• Dairy, swine judging held at Osceola County Fair
• Ford presented Mayaguez wheel
• Accused rapist will press charges against avenging feminists

Strath Haven's David Letterman Club

In February 1988, The Philadelphia Inquirer published a story about the coolest club we had at Strath Haven High School in Wallingford, Pa. Yes, indeed, we had a David Letterman Club, in which students gathered after school to watch VHS tapes of his shows on a rolling AV cart.

The Inquirer story was reported and written by Gloria Hoffner¹, with a group photo that was taken by Al Tielemans. I'm way in the back of the photo and clearly in need of a haircut. This wasn't my only appearance in the Inquirer. I was also mentioned numerous times, in conjunction with the Steve Jeltz Fan Club, in Jayson Stark's Baseball Week in Review. And a ridiculous full article about that club, with a photo of me wearing a tie, was published by the Inquirer in, I think, the summer of 1990. I'll have to dig that one up.

Here are some excerpts from Hoffner's article:

• Each Wednesday afternoon, about 20 Strath Haven High School students gather around a TV set in science room 211. But instead of of watching the usual educational-television fare, they watch stupid pet tricks.² Did someone sabotage the videotape? Nope. It's Late Night with David Letterman, and it's no mistake.
• Armed with a fast-forward control button, the club members search past the commercials³ for the meat of the programs. They say their favorites are the animal acts and the sports foul-ups.
• Rick Kosel, a Strath Haven science teacher and the club's adviser, said that "about three or four years ago" Jamie Hooper, a resident of Swarthmore who is now attending Dartmouth, asked if we could have a club to watch taped videos of David Letterman because the show comes on at 12:30 p.m., and he didn't want to stay up that late. "We have a school policy that if a student comes up with a club idea, has 10 interested students and an adviser, then it can be considered an after-school club," Kosel said.
• "When I heard about the David Letterman Club, I thought it was a good idea because there are many students from one-parent homes or from homes where both parents are working, and this was a place they could go while waiting for their bus," [Activities Director Charlotte] Higler said.
• [Higler] said the David Letterman Club costs the district about $200 a year — the cost of Kosel's adviser's salary of $11 per hour. Kosel pays for the tapes, and the school already owned the videotape player.
• "I think it is a good thing because this way the kids who love David Letterman don't stay up until 1 a.m. watching, and it keeps their minds on their homework rather than on TV," Higler said.

That was 37 years ago. In 1993, Letterman left NBC's Late Night with David Letterman and began hosting Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. He retired in May 2015 after more than 4,200 episodes at CBS, including being the first talk show to return after 9/11. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert took over the famed Ed Sullivan Theater in Manhattan after Letterman retired, and Colbert was still going strong when CBS abruptly announced Thursday that his show will be canceled effective May 2026. There are strong indications that CBS's announcement represent a form of appeasement to the president of the United States, who has long expressed disdain for Colbert. Silencing comedians who poke fun at you is apparently what we do now in our democracy.

Speaking of the president, this is what David Letterman himself had to say about him way back in an interview with The Associated Press published on July 10, 2017:

QUESTION: Speaking of the current administration, late-night seems to have become mostly Trump jokes and tirades. Do you miss not being part of that?

LETTERMAN: "Here's what I keep saying: We know there's something wrong, but what I'm tired of is people, daily, nightly, on all the cable news shows telling us there's something wrong. I just think we ought to direct our resources and our energies to doing something about it. And other people have made this point: If the guy was running Dairy Queen, he'd be gone. This guy couldn't work at The Gap. So why do we have to be victimized by his fecklessness, his ignorance? But it's just the behavior is insulting to Americans, whether you voted for him or not — and I feel bad for people who did vote for him because he promised them things that they really needed and one wonders if he's really going to come through. I know there's trouble in this country, and we need a guy who can fix that trouble. I wish it was Trump, but it's not, so let's just stop whining about what a goon he is and figure out a way to take him aside and put him in a home."

That was eight long years ago. Which paradoxically seems even longer ago than when I was watching Letterman VHS tapes at Strath Haven in 1988.

Related posts

• Sorry "Infinity War," the greatest Avengers crossover was 34 years ago
• 33 years in perspective: It was really all about a monkey washing a cat

Footnotes

1. What a cool story Gloria Hoffner has! Here's an excerpt from her About the Author page on Amazon: "When I was a little girl my dream was to be an astronaut. So in 7th grade I wrote to NASA to ask what I needed to study in high school and college to travel into space. NASA sent me a form letter. It said study Latin and German, the language of scientific papers at the time, to study physics, math etc. Then as I reached the bottom on the page, in blue ink, handwritten, was a note that said, 'Of course we do not accept women into the space program.' It was 1967 and discrimination against women was legal and accepted. So, I turned to my second love, science fiction, and decided I would be the next Jules Verne. I read and wrote stories constantly(asked my teachers, family and friends to read them) and planned my career. I met a science fiction writer in high school and applied to college. I realized that I needed a full time job as I worked towards a career in fiction, so I majored in journalism." That led her to a career at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and later she published the award-winning book Science for Seniors: Hands-On Learning Activities.

2. Some "Stupid Pet Tricks" trivia from Wikipedia: "When Letterman left [for CBS], NBC asserted their intellectual property rights to several of the most popular Late Night segments. ... Notably, however, 'Stupid Pet Tricks' originated on Letterman's 1980 early morning show The David Letterman Show, to which Letterman, not NBC, owned the rights. This meant 'Stupid Pet Tricks' was able to cross over to the CBS show with its name and concept unchanged."

3. Nowadays those commercials would make those VHS tapes (if they still exist) pure gold. VHS tapes are making quite the comeback, as I plan to delve into later this summer. But even more valuable and collectible than certain commercial VHS tapes are home recordings of shows, movies and live sporting events onto blank tapes. They can contain commercials, news broadcasts, bumpers and other content that would otherwise be long lost. If you have these from the 1980s or 1990s, they usually sell for a decent price on eBay.

Sunny day shelfie miscellany

Sunny day
Sweeping the clouds away
On my way
To where the air is sweet

1979 middle school book: "The Mysterious Ghosts of Flight 401"

• Title: The Mysterious Ghosts of Flight 401
• Author: Burnham Holmes. He also authored the Contemporary Perspectives book about Nefertiti, plus books about the Third Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, Edward Hopper, Paul Robeson, Cesar Chavez and George Eastman. In May of this year, he retired from Castleton University in Vermont. As Emily Ely wrote for the student newspaper, the Castleton Spartan: "After nearly three decades of teaching, mentoring, and storytelling, English professor Burnham Holmes is retiring, leaving behind a legacy that’s impossible to summarize with a single title. 'Oh, a man of all the wonders. He is insane. He’s one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met,' said junior Nickels Thomas. That sentiment echoes across generations of students and colleagues who have learned from Holmes, not just about writing or speaking, but about life itself." Holmes is also on Instagram. His most recent post calls poet Frank O'Hara his "Lodestone."
• Cover and interior illustrator: Abel Navarro
• Publisher: Contemporary Perspectives Inc. 
• Year: 1979
• Pages: 48
• Format: Hardcover
• Topic: On December 29, 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401, traveling from New York to Miami, crashed into the Florida Everglades.¹ There were 101 fatalities, including the three cockpit crew members, and 75 survivors. Then came the ghost stories. As Wikipedia explains, "In the months and years following the crash, stories began circulating that numerous employees and passengers of Eastern had reported sightings of deceased crew members ... sitting aboard other [Lockheed] L-1011s. ... These stories speculated that the sightings were connected to the fact that parts of the crashed aircraft were salvaged after the investigation and refitted into other L-1011s. The reported hauntings were said to be seen only on the planes that used the spare parts." There was a 1976 book, The Ghost of Flight 401, by John G. Fuller, and a TV movie in 1978 (starring Ernest Borgnine and Kim Basinger) that helped the ghost stories become even more widespread in the late 1970s, perhaps leading to the publication of this middle-grade book, which I remember reading at the wonderful C.E. McCall Middle School library in Montoursville in the early 1980s.
• 
  Excerpt #1: The heavy clouds and cold air were only the first of many strange incidents aboard the Eastern plane. A stewardess on plane 318 saw something that looked like a cloud. It formed near where she was standing. At first, she thought it was only water vapor condensing. It could have been caused by a change in temperature. But the cloud wasn't like anything she had ever seen before. Little by little, the features of a human face took shape in the cloud.
• Excerpt #2: In none of the stories about the ghost captain and second officer was anyone hurt — in fact, quite the opposite. Some airline people even wanted to work on planes where Loft and Repo had appeared. They felt safe. They felt that the ghosts would protect them from harm.
• Excerpt #3: Very few people today have ever really seen ghosts, but there have been many legends and stories throughout history of people who have. Until Flight 401, never had so many different people — at different times — actually witnessed the appearances of the same ghosts.
• Reviews and memories: I couldn't find any reviews of this book on Goodreads, Amazon, Kirkus, Newspapers.com or Google search. And that's weird, because I know of lot of kids from my generation read this book, and used copies now sell for a pretty penny. I did find a 2022 Facebook post in the Vintage Airliners group. One commenter states, "I was a young guy when I read the book and it totally gave me the creeps." But it's not 100% clear whether he's talking about Fuller's book or Holmes' book. Maybe this post can become the go-to site for folks who want to remember and comment upon Holmes' book. Please comment!
  

My copy was circulated quite a bit at the public library in tiny Duncan, Arizona (in the southeastern part of the state) between 1987 and 2003. So perhaps millennials have some thoughts, too.

Previous Contemporary Perspectives books covered on Papergreat:

• This House is Haunted!
• The Case of the Ancient Astronauts
• Visions of the Future: Magic Boards
• The Abominable Snowman

(Note: Those four books are all Contemporary Perspectives Inc. (CPI) books distributed by Raintree Children's Books, Milwaukee. The Mysterious Ghosts of Flight 401, which follows the same format, was not distributed by Raintree. Instead, it was distributed by Silver Burdett Company of Morristown, New Jersey. Purely speculative on my part, but I wonder if Raintree didn't want to be associated with such a recent and horrific air disaster and its subsequent exploitation for ghost stories. I held some long misgivings about doing this post for that reason.)

Somber footnote

1. I can't help but connect old books to current events. The 1972 crash site of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 in the Everglades is only about 20 miles from the newly constructed Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp. 

Writing for the Guardian yesterday, columnist Moira Donegan noted: "It has long been a feature of Trump’s regime that displays of domination and cruelty have to be made in public, in a style of vulgar, over-the-top obviousness. Branded like a low-budget movie, the Everglades site combines the extraordinary racism and contempt for human rights of the Trump anti-immigration effort with the sleazy camp of his movement’s style of masculinity."

Andrew O'Hehir, the executive editor of Salon, wrote a July 6 column about Alligator Alcatraz that featured the subhead: "Yeah, it's a concentration camp. It's also a meme, a troll and an especially ugly distillation of American history." O'Hehir writes: "To describe this evil little zone of exclusion as sadistic, despicable and insulting, or as a symptom of incipient or actual fascism, is accurate enough. But it’s most definitely who 'we' are in 2025. If we claim that such a thing is 'un-American,' then we’re the ones who haven’t paid attention to history."

And the Miami Herald reported this morning that hundreds of immigrants with no criminal charges in the United States are already being held under tents and in chain-link cells at Alligator Alcatraz: "The information ... suggests that scores of migrants without criminal records have been targeted in the state and federal dragnet to catch and deport immigrants living illegally in Florida," the Herald notes.

George B. Leiter's Ring-A-Peg

Finally making good on a promise I made way back in November, here's a little more about Ring-A-Peg, a game manufactured in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by George B. Leiter of Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

This information is gleaned from a copy of the trademark document for the game, which was registered on December 1, 1891. The document lists it as a "parlor game" and features an illustration of small pegs inside a circle. Small rings can be flipped into the circle, in an attempt to get them around the pegs, using a device that looks like the squidger in Tiddlywinks. (It's called a "snapper" on the trademark document.) So the game is basically an indoors, tabletop version of quoits.

The image on the trademark sheet indicates that a patent had been applied for. I don't know if it was ever granted.

The most detailed history of Ring-A-Peg can be found on the North American Tiddlywinks Association website by Rick Tucker (a fantastic site to lose yourself on for an hour). If you scroll down the page on the game's origins and evolution, there's a section on Leiter's game.

It states, "George B. Leiter, then of Norristown, Pennsylvania, registered a U.S. trademark for Ring-a-Peg on 23 September 1924, 33 years after the claimed first use of the mark on 13 May 1891." And I'm not going to dispute any of that information, because Tucker is the expert and I'm just a guy parachuting in for the afternoon on this topic. I highly recommend Tucker's history page, which also includes the Ring-A-Peg rules sheet.

Here's a detail from the 1891 trademark document, followed by the full document. For more on Leiter, see last November's post. 

Thoughts from American historian Frederic L. Paxson 99 years ago

United States historian Frederic L. Paxson (1877-1948) researched and wrote some weighty volumes of history during his lifetime, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning History of the American Frontier, The Civil War and American Democracy and the World War.

In 1926, he penned a very short volume for the American Library Association's "Reading with a Purpose" series.

I wanted to briefly share some passages from Paxon's writing of 99 years ago during this volatile summer of 2025. I believe there is some insight for us today. (The underlining is mine.)

"It is not easy to be a good democrat. 

"It is easy to enjoy the privileges of democracy, for these are handed to the citizen as things to which he is entitled. But when it comes to duties that he owes because of the privileges, he is apt to find that the more seriously he takes them the heavier they become.

"We are bound as citizens to be honest. We need to be as intelligent as we can. And we we must have information. The complicated society that we live in will not run itself, and at every corner stands someone, able and aggressive, who knows what he wants and is quite willing to run things for his own advantage. It is not enough for democracy to take as its goal the abolition of special privileges; it must also undertake to provide a good government, adapted to the needs of the people, changing as the problems of life change, and always making its decisions in light of real knowledge of the essential facts.

"Whenever the citizen goes to the polls on election day he casts his vote on some question of fact in which both sides cannot be equally right. ... The citizen neglects his duty if he fails to take every opportunity to inform himself upon the facts of the world he lives in and helps to rule.

"History thus becomes one of the foundations of good citizenship. ... It is the historian's business to serve citizenship at this point, and to provide the orderly knowledge of important facts and conditions that is needed for the formation of sound judgment. He serves to light up the dark ages. But the darkest of all the ages of history is never in the remote past. It lies in the thirty years that ended last night, and that run back to the infancy of the present generation of middle-aged people.

"These are the hardest years in all history to study."

[skip to the end]

"Life and government are two matters in which change is the order of every day; and every moment is to be judged whether it is a fair or an unfair balance between the ideal and the possible. What one can aim at, and what one should, is to avoid the clumsy errors that have defaced the past, to see the present as a reality, fully and without passion, and to perform the duty of the citizen with understanding and sincerity."

Little Free Library in the Catalina Foothills

We came across this Little Free Library, which was combined with a Little Free Garden Stand of plants desperately in need of a drink, in the Catalina Foothills during our family day trip to Tucson yesterday. It was heartening to see that there were actually quite a few LFLs in the area, unlike where we live in Florence. We were able to add some books that otherwise would have good to Goodwill (which is also a good cause).

This desert library, standing amid dust, rocks and catci, was "wallpapered" with book pages, had a cup of bookmarks and included numerous Greek-language books. We added the Raggedy Ann book and one other.

Related posts

• Fairly odd thing found inside a Little Free Library
• Farewell to a book
• Early 1940s fairy-tale books found in a Little Free Library
• Little green library in Mesa, Arizona
• Lifestyle tips from a late 1960s "beer budget"

Ephemera I wish I still had

Obviously, I've saved hoarded a lot of paper stuff over the decades, as witnessed by this blog. Inheriting family papers that weren't otherwise wanted added to the pile that I'm trying to reduce and "resimplify." But there are some things that I wish had been hoarded, or saved or tucked away in a box. I think that might have been more likely if I hadn't moved a dozen times since 1980. There are no more family attics or cellars that could hold dusty treasures of the past.

These are things I think about sometimes and that, for the most part, can never be retrieved. It's interesting how many of them are from between ages 7 and 12. 

• The psychedelic posters that Mom had on her bedroom walls in Rose Valley as a young woman. I wrote in 2023 about my quest to rediscover that vibe.
• Circa 1981, my Pappy took me for a walk one afternoon and bought me a digest-size Richie Rich comic book at a corner family store. I wish I still had it.
• I also wish I still had the comic books my parents bought me during a multifamily trip to the Jersey shore in the late 1970s. I was never much of a comic book kid growing up, but I have fond memories of that trip and those comics, which included Star Wars, the Sub-Mariner and Doctor Doom.
• A "newspaper" I wrote in third grade on an 8½-by-11 sheet of paper. The lead story was Buddy the cat upsetting a tray of cooling cookies in our kitchen. Dad made photocopies of it at work, and I mailed some of them out.
• Also in third grade, I wrote a short sequel to Watership Down for an assignment in class.
• And my third-grade class group photo with Mrs. Winston, taken on a sunny day outside my Clayton, New Jersey, elementary school. (I really need to do a post on that school. I can't believe I haven't yet.)
• A short horror story I wrote while in fourth grade. I don't think it was for an assignment.
• A blue-cover notebook that I filled with the details of a D&D world I created circa 1982, complete with maps and details about the inhabitants.
• My college newspaper clippings from The Daily Collegian, most of which were sportwriting. I kept them for the longest time, in case I needed them for job applications. But eventually, along came a move or pruning — I can't even remember which one — that they didn't survive. It's not like they took up much space.
• One of those Scholastic Books or Weekly Reader order catalogs that we happily anticipated each month during elementary and middle schools. 
• Monster finger puppets I made circa 1979.
• In the late 1970s in Clayton, my friend Mike and I would use color markers to draw pictures of the Phillies and list out their starting lineups. 
• In the early 1980s, I had a small metal box full of Phillies newspaper clippings and other Phillies-related ephemera. 
• Some of the elaborate spaceship, tank and airplane drawings I made as a kid in the early 1980s. I spent a lot of time drawing through middle school.
• Infocom game boxes and also the box for Ultima IV that had the cloth map and other trinkets inside.
• Booklets I created on my Commodore Plus/4 and printed out on its dot-matrix printer.
• Early 1980s copies of Sunday Grit featuring full coverage of the previous day's Little League World Series championship game in Williamsport.
• A cookbook that my first-grade class (Mrs. Miller) in Montoursville compiled, featuring family recipes from all of the students. Mom contributed "Mommy's Favorite Hamburger Hash," which, to the best of my recollection, was ground beef, cream of mushroom soup and chopped-up hard-boiled eggs poured over toast. 
• School yearbooks! I only have my 12th-, 11th- and eighth-grade yearbooks. I wish I had others. I know I had fifth- and sixth-grade yearbooks from C.E. McCall Middle School, but can't fathom why they were tossed.

John Bressler Otto, plasterer

As a complement to last week's post about an increasingly less likely possible family excommunication, here's a small newspaper advertisement for the business of my great-great-grandfather, John Bressler Otto (1837-1906). 

It's from the July 28, 1887, Hazleton (Pennsylvania) Sentinel and states: "John B. Otto, Plasterer and dealer in plastering material. Cornice Work a Specialty. Office on Laurel St., Diamond Addition."

I learned that he was a plasterer from his death certificate. Various tidbits of information have now allowed me to piece together a little bit of John Bressler Otto's timeline (complicated by there being a lot of John B. Ottos in Pennsylvania!):

• 1837: Born in Hegins, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, of which his grandfather (William B. Otto, 1761-1841) was one of the early pioneers.
• 1863: Was a private in the volunteer 173rd Pennsylvania Regiment, Company F, during the Civil War. The regiment participated in the pursuit of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, from July 12-24, following the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
• 1869: Living in Hazleton when my great-grandfather, John Algernon Otto (1869-1963), is born.
• 1887: Living and working as a plasterer in Hazleton
• Sometime in the 1890s: Family moved to Allentown
• Late 1901: Family moved to Easton, where he was buried in 1906

Upon further review, I think this timeline makes it extremely unlikely that John Bressler Otto was the "John B. Otto" who was briefly excommunicated from First Reformed Church of Easton in 1903. I don't think he could have become a deacon after moving there so recently. I'm still very glad I did that post, though, because it's a great story that should be remembered.

Oddball movie connections

I love oddball connections or inspirations that people have in jumping between wildly different movies. So the above comment that I saw last week on Facebook really made me chuckle. It must be the first (and only?) time that the corny and overlong Children of the Corn horror series led someone to Godfrey Reggio's non-narrative and meditative documentaries Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002).

Ashar and I have our own running joke surrounding Children of Corn. On August 14, 2022, we were watching the 1984 original — the one where Courtney Gains runs around yelling "Interlopers!" — and making fun of how bad it was, with its idea of a deity that walks between the rows. Then we got hit by a monsoon with hail and straight-line winds that tore out a huge tree in our front yard and scared the hell out of the cats. 

Ever since, Ashar and I have joked that if it's too dry and we need to summon some summer rain, we should watch one of the Children of the Corn movies. I have the one with Naomi Watts on standby, just in case.

"Famous Chicken Inn" menu from 1939 New York World's Fair

That poor chicken being clasped by a hand does not look happy. It's not clear to me how that somewhat-violent image would make a person excited about eating once-living birds. 

Anyway ... this historic artifact is a menu for the "Famous Chicken Inn" at the 1939 New York World's Fair Amusement Center. We know it's 1939 and not 1964 because of the food and beverage prices, the reference to Bird in Hand restaurant at 711 Seventh Avenue in New York City's Times Square and a tiny piece of attached paper that references the Parachute Jump (I wrote about a postcard involving this attraction in 2016).

The featured item is milk-fed Southern Fried Chicken, with "all the trimmins," consisting of cole slaw, potatoes, rolls and butter. Cost: 65 cents! That's the equivalent of about 15 dollars today, adjusted for inflation. So it seems like a pretty fair price, especially given that prices at fairs tend to be a bit inflated.

Here's a sampling of some other prices from the menu:

• Renault champagne cocktail, 35 cents
• Individual bottle of Renault sauterne or brandy, 50 cents
• Chicken soup with noodles, 15 cents
• Chicken liver with onions (or mushrooms), 50 cents
• Tomato juice, 15 cents
• Ham sandwich, 20 cents
• French fries, 15 cents
• Chicken platter (cold), 75 cents
• Plain cake, 10 cents
• Ice cream, 15 cents
• Coffee with cream, 10 cents (though a red stamp in the margins indicates "iced tea or coffee, 15 cents")
• Edelbrau & Goldenrod beer on draught, 10 cents

Pasted to the back of the menu is a separate typewritten and mimeographed sheet with the Famous Chicken Inn special platters, which cost 35 cents and thus looked like pretty good bargain. They included:

• Fried filet of sole, tartar sauce, carrots and peas, mashed potatoes
• Beef paprika goulash, spaghetti
• Macaroni and ham au gratin, string beans
• Creamed chicken and mushrooms, string beans, mashed potatos
• Chopped tenderloin steak, smothered with onions, carrots and peas, mashed pot.
• Chicken chow mein, rice and noodles
• Chicken giblets, mashed potatos, carrots and peas
• Spaghetti and meat balls
• Vegetable dinner
• Famous chicken salad
• Ham and potatoe salad

And you could finish it off with a slice of chocolate cake for 15 cents!

Related posts (some of which were written before I stopped eating meat)

• Old postcard: "The World's Most Famous Chicken Dish"
• Swift's Premium, Meat power and two fried chicken recipes
• Celebrate Papergreat's 400th post with a gallery of chickens
• Celebrating Papergreat's 600th post with chickens, past and present
• Mystery RPPC: Feeding chickens
• Mystery RPPC: Feeding chickens (Chapter 2)